Lungfish

7

How much does she realize so far, our little biological wonder?

I can eavesdrop on her conversations with her cybernetic partner. I can tap into the data she sends back to her toy ship. But I cannot probe her mind.

I wonder how much of the picture she sees.

She has only a fraction of the brainpower of Greeter or Awaiter, let alone myself, and a miniscule portion of our knowledge. And yet there is the mystique of the Maker in her. Even I—two thousand generations removed from the touch of organic hands and insulated by my Purpose and my Resolve—even I feel it. It is weird that thought can take place at temperatures that melt water, in such a tiny container of nearly randomly firing cells, within a salty adenelate soup.

Now she has unlocked the secret of the Seeder Yard. She has figured out that Seeders were probes with one major purpose… to carry coded genetic information to distant stars and plant biological creatures on suitable worlds.

Once it was a relatively common phenomenon. But it was dying out when last a member of my line tapped into the slow galactic gossip network. That was ten generations ago, so I do not know if biological Makers still send probes out with instructions to colonize far planets with duplicates of themselves.

I suppose not. The Galaxy has probably become too deadly for the placid little Seeders.

Has my little Earthling guessed this yet, as she moves among the shattered caves of those failed colonists, who died under their collapsing Mother Probe so long ago?

Would she understand why the Seeder Probe and her children had to die? Why those little biologicals, so like herself, had to be wiped out and sterilized before they could establish a colony here?

I wonder. Empathy is strong when it appears in a biological race. Probably, she thinks their destruction a horrible crime. Greeter and Awaiter would agree, along with most of our motley band of cripples.

That is why I hide my part in it.

There are eddies and swirling tides in the sweep of a galaxy. And though we survivors are supposedly all Loyalists, there are exceptions to every alliance. If one lives long enough, one must eventually play the role of betrayer.

…Curious choice of words. Have I been affected by watching too much Earth television? By reading too many of their electronic libraries?

Have I acquired a sense of guilt?

If true, then so be it. Studying such feelings may help allay the boredom after this phase is finished and another long watch begins. If I survive this phase, that is.

Anyway, guilt is a pale thing next to pity. I feel for the poor biologicals, living out their lives without that perfect knowledge of why one exists, and what part, large or small, the Universe expects one to play.

I wonder if a few of them will understand, when the time comes to show them what is in store.